“Suck” At Los Angeles Film Festival Fast Track
“Suck” which is a script that I developed with an amazing new writer Ursula Holloman has been selected for this years Los Angeles Film Festival’s Fast Track program.
The script/film takes place in the early days of San Francisco punk rock – 1977 – and concerns Nina – whose life sucks. She has a shit job, no friends, and she’s fucked up so badly as a mother that she’s no longer part of her young child’s life. When she goes to visit her daughter and the door is slammed in her face, Nina can no longer bear the guilt and failure, and decides to end it all.
But life changes radically when Ian, lead singer in a local punk band, foils her suicide attempt. Obsessed with her savior, Nina follows him deep into the unfamiliar punk underground. She’s assaulted by the noise, shocked by what she sees – but, in this unlikely community of misfits and outcasts, she unexpectedly finds her place.
She plugs in a guitar, and, with a teenage Jesus freak on organ, a mud-wrestling bass player, and the world’s worst drummer, forms a band that unleashes the rage and power buried within her.
The San Francisco punk rock scene provided me with inspiration and opportunity to become the person that I am today. As a punk in Berkeley, I soon discovered Target Video and jumped at the chance to move into their rat infested loft in the Mission district and begin documenting the nascent punk scene in San Francisco. I devoted my life fully to the cry and howl of this culture. The experience changed my life completely, stopping my predestined career in academia and turning me into a filmmaker.
Since my own trip down the punk rock rabbit hole, I have been obsessed with how subcultures provide a way for people to find their way in the world and find out who they truly are. And this is Nina’s story – she’s lost in a world that doesn’t add up – and through punk rock she finds a way to make sense of it.
